Hassanal Bolkiah, the Sultan of Brunei, is a cross between a Bond villain and Pastor Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church. In his oil-rich lair, Bolkiah has devised an evil plot to kill all the gays. At least, that's what the Western press and U.S. LGBT groups are saying. Nine months ago, the Sultan promised to phase in a criminal code based on Syariah — Malay for Sharia, Islamic law. This week, Western gay activists decided that that means "outrageous anti-gay legislation." Enough said.

The attached report was submitted by the Bahrain Center for Human Rights to the CEDAW (Convention for the Eliminatin of Discrimination Against Women) Committee.

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights is is a nonprofit, non-governmental organization, registered with the Bahraini Ministry of Labor and Social Services since July 2002. Despite an order by the authorities in November 2004 to close it, the BCHR is still functioning after gaining wide internal and external support for its struggle to promote human rights in Bahrain. The co-founder and former President of the BCHR is Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, who is currently serving a life sentence in prison for charges related to freedom of speech. The current President is Nabeel Rajab, who is serving a two year prison sentence for his work as a human rights defender. The Acting President is Maryam Al-Khawaja.

The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) is a leading human rights organisation in Bahrain that monitors the human rights situation in the country and focuses on tackling discrimination and promoting universal human rights and democracy. In cooperation with Caram Asia and with the support of FIDH, BCHR submitted an alternative report to the Committee in 2008. This report focused on the situation of women migrant domestic workers in Bahrain. It was then decided to tackle specifically this issue as there were specific concerns on an issue which was at this time not specifically addressed. Since February 2011, the violent repression against the protest movement in Bahrain led to human rights violations that affected, and even specifically targeted, women's rights. This report will examine the implementation of key observations made by the CEDAW Committee in 2008 and highlight the consequences of the current crisis in Bahrain on the fundamental rights and freedoms of women.